What's New in greatriver.com and the Mississippi River Home Page by Pat Middleton?

What's New on Greatriver.com, the
?

Word is Out! Overnight Cruise boats returning to the Mississippi River

ALERT: The Mississippi River is going to see renewed paddlewheeler action!

American Cruise Lines, a small-ship operator based in the US state of Connecticut is reported to be building a 140-passenger vessel and hopes to have it in the water by 2012. US industry website, Travel Pulse, says the vessel will have "an old-fashioned appearance" and balconies for 90% of cabins. More details, including itineraries, will be announced next month.

Also, the former Cruise West vessel, Glacier Bay, is being refitted to cruise the Mississippi River. More info on our "Ramblin' On" travel, heritage, and natural history blog!

Just a heads up that we are in the process of transforming our ONLINE SHOPPING experience at GREATRIVER.COM. For Google Checkout fans, it will be a snap. For the rest of us, it will be:
1) basically the same, and 2) there will be an option to sign up for the VERY EASY Google Checkout. No doubt, there are pages that we will miss in the transformation... so PLEASE, if you run into a glitch, let us know!!

PREFER NOT TO USE GOOGLE CHECKOUT? Just phone us at 888-255-7726 to order. I'd also love to hear your comments.
Finally, we have greatly expanded our RIVER BOOK offerings in a NEW E-STORE and hope to be adding addition gift items steadily. Check us out...

We now have "gift PRINTS" of more historic maps than ever in the $20 range. Also books, real photo note cards, and steamboat prints.

Today (3/7/10) I watched 3 sandhill cranes fly over the valley...about a week earlier than average. Contribute your sightings to our birding posts or visit our birding page.

Planning a bike trip on the Elroy-Sparta National BikeTrail?
Over 120 miles of state bike trails meander the varied terrain of Minnesota and Wisconsin's" Coulee Country." We have info on the Root River, Great River, LaCrosse River, and Perrot State Park bike trails. Sponsored by Innkeepers and bikes hops along our most popular bike trails!

New! Biker's Guide to the ENTIRE Mississippi River Trail, through ALL TEN states bordering the Mississippi River!!!

We've just started posting a free online book by Carl Franson...
SECOND AGE: MY YEAR on a MISSISSIPPI RIVER SHANTY BOAT. Click here !

For a great little You Tube video on a modern - day Shanty Boat,
visit "Ramblin' On," Pat's Mississippi River Blog." Birding, fishing, and land travel are all fair game

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It's HERE... our brand new, greatly expanded Vol 1, of Discover! America's Great River Road. From St. Paul to Dubuque, we've added hundreds of new entries, new photos, maps, and charts in a completely redesigned format to make it easier than ever to use. Order today and explore the Upper Mississippi during our peak color season! FALL COLOR season.

Visit our Fall Color Hotline for the ten states along the Mississippi River.

Click envelop to contact us!

For more truly unique journeys on small boats, trains, and other unique destinations around the world, visit our WATERWAYS TRAVEL DIRECTORY

Our biggest news for 2009 is an expanded venue for our popular WATERWAY CRUISE REPORTS and TRAVEL FEATURES. Not only have we been traveling and reporting on the Mississippi River for 23 years, but we have concurrently been exploring many of the world's great travel destinations... and many you've never heard of!

Please visit our PHOTO ART SITE for detailed travel photo essays, and a much better means of viewing our Mississippi River art... the hand-painted historic maps, the note cards, and our new steamboat prints.

We are always on the hunt for light adventure, a Mississippi River tie-in, and great depth of history and natural history. If a destination also offers riparian environment, paddleboats, small boat cruising, classic train journeys or world class scenery, we want to bring it to you!

For the first time since I've been on the river, the DELTA QUEEN steamboat (shown left, on the cover of Volume 2 of DISCOVER! America's Great River Road) as well as both the Mississippi Queen and the American Queen are no longer plying the Mississippi River.

Visit our free ONLINE PREVIEW of Discover! America's Great River Road guidebooks? We're just beginning to post portions of DISCOVER! America's Great River Road online. We've started with the official introduction which will explain just what the Great River Road is and how to travel it. When it comes to the Great River Road, we wrote the book!!!
Order the #1 selling river travel guide books on our secure shopping cart.

We have posted our Brand New Discussion Board for the use of Birders, Travelers, Fishermen and River Buffs at www.greatriver.com.



Beautiful, antiqued, hand-painted MISSISSIPPI RIVER MAPS! English, French, Spanish, Italian River Maps from 1698 to 1887. We have yet to see any maps that approach the unique quality of these maps. Call 888-255-7726 for details!!! Or contact us online to order personalized note cards of your favorite portion of the antique map.

Looking for a great SMALL BOAT CRUISE? greatriver.com is now #1, #2, and #3 in Google for Waterway Cruise Reports and Small Boat Cruise Reports from around the world!! We've just added a review of the IZAAK WALTON INN, a former Great Northern Railway Lodge just outside Glacier National Park. Thinking about a train journey from Vancouver to Jasper? Or Driving the Columbian Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Lake Louise? Click the underlined link above to see our reviews of these and many small boat river cruises around the nation and the world.

Fall color and comfortable temps highlight this season for visiting the Mississippi River Delta. Volume 4, Memphis to the Gulf, of DISCOVER! AMERICA'S GREAT RIVER ROAD by Pat Middleton is now available to order at www.greatriver.com/order.htm and all better bookstores. Click here for a recent review from the S&D REFLECTOR.

The four volumes of Discover! America's Great River Road, provide an indispensable guidebook for anyone looking to explore the Mississippi River.. Like a string of pearls, the small towns of the Mississippi River offer fascinating history, southern hospitality, unique cultural landmarks. A great Christmas or retirement gift!

Check out birding along the Riparian corridors in Southwestern Arizona.
Riparian? That means water-dependant environments. We call them "rivers" up north. The difference is that our "rivers" tend to stay in place year-around!

We are currently updating our shopping cart including "Bicycling the Mississippi River Trail" and all new original art photo note cards.

Did you ever think you might see fish FLY?? Or Eagles swim???
If you are a fisherman or pleasure boater on the Mississippi River, you will!
See our new WEEKLY FISH REPORT for the Upper Mississippi River.

An insider's look at the rise and fall of the G. Heileman Brewing Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Filled with historic photos and a complete history from its humble beginnings to its Zenith as the 4th largest brewery in the United States. #17 in our "Books and Charts" order section. See also:

7 Exuberant Quality Fine Art RIVER EXCURSION NOTE CARDS available only from greatriver.com     A Great GIFT IDEA for the river buff on your list. Click on "Blue Flowers" image to see all seven new designs by Lisa Middleton.

Grand Excursion 2004 to the Upper Mississippi River has come and gone...but the Mississippi River remains to be discovered! Click link for historical details and web links. Discover! America's Great River Road, Volumes 1 and 2 will guide you along the entire route, Davenport, Iowa, to St. Paul, Minnesota! Email us now to reserve your copy of Volume 4, Memphis to the Gulf.

Steamboat Buffs! Author Michael Gillespie (Come Hell or High Water and Wild River Wooden Boats) was recently featured on the History Channel! Order books by clicking on the titles. Visit our new Steamboat photo gallery .

A great link for identifying mussel shells on the the Mississippi River and a useful site for those searching for riverboats and Captains!

PADDLERS! Seasoned kayaker, Byron Curtis, details his 62-day journey on the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Basin. Includes daily notes, distances, gear list and more! http://greatriver.com/order.htm

We are currently revamping our Birding Bulletin Board and our new LONGHAUL BBS for boaters planning a TRANS-MISSISSIPPI journey. Also see our ADVENTURE BBS . YES! we have the river navigation charts and DISCOVER! Guidebooks you need for the journey at http://greatriver.com/order.htm

Return to the Mississippi River Home Page

Coming in September, Pat's report Winter in the Grand Canyon and cruising the headwaters of the AMAZON RIVER! New on our cruise report page: Enjoy our first SLIDE SHOW, Cruising the Yangtze River in China ! Also, Fast Water Fly Fishing, Whitewater Rafting and Scenic Floats on the Flathead River, Glacier National Park. Click here to access all our WATERWAY CRUISES reports.

Contact us

The University of Virginia is sponsoring a display of historic maps, including many related to the Mississippi River and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Their web offering is excellent! Click here to learn more.
    [Visit our Mississippi River Bookstores! ]
Tundra Swans are back on the upper Mississippi! They were filling the bay south of Goose Island and Hwy 35 near La Crosse. New posting on the observation platform south of Brownsville, MN. Looking for Eagles? They're on the Upper Mississippi. The Upper river is still open! Our Birding section has several eagle-watching features. Planning to come looking for Eagles and Swans? Order Vol 1, of DISCOVER! America's Great River Road at http://greatriver.com/order.htm Thank you for checking out our sponsors!

Who visits greatriver.com? Click here to see stats on the top 50 countries.

Walleye Fishing is hot on the Upper river, and a trophy catch now and then is almost to be expected, but is it safe to eat the fish? Check out our fishingfeature at http://greatriver.com/fish
Please let our sponsors know that you've found them on greatriver.com We could not continue to bring you this site without their participation!!

Employment opportunities at Great River Publishing! If you do HTML programming and design, or would like to represent the Mississippi River Home Page to advertisers in your community, please write Employment@greatriver.com or call Pat at 608-457-2734.

Along with snow storm after snow storm, we now also have the Wisconsin Presidential Primaries on Feb 19. The snow isn't great for campaigning, but it IS providing for great skiing in the Upper Midwest.

Gail Mewes has nearly completed her first week pedaling down the river from Nauvoo, Illinois to New Orleans. She sends us riveting reports of her journey on the ADVENTUREBBS.

Welcome to new readers from Heartland Boating. The first of Pat's2-partseries on river birding was published in the August issue. For more on riverbirding, visit our Birding Pages!
"Kitty,Kitty,Kitty!" Cats, pose a grave problem for rural wildlife. This new feature suggest that cats kill between 8 and 217 MILLION birds each year in Wisconsin alone!

Check out weekly email reports from Kimberly and Rebekah as they make a modern-day hike from Utah to Nauvoo, Illinois, on the Mormon Trail! This week: coping with wind, storms, and dehydration. Also, check out our INSIGHT Feature, Mormons on the Mississippi.

Web Hosting Services from GREAT RIVER PUBLISHING.
If you have appreciated the fast, reliable access to our greatriver.com site, you may want to consider placing your own web site with our server. CLICK HERE for details on signing up with our highly recommended server. HIP offers fully-featured, commercial quality sites that we are happy to recommend to our readers and advertisers.

Looking for travel info? Purchase an advance copy of Volume 3, (St. Louis to Memphis) and we will email you the chapters on Cairo, Western Kentucky, and Western Tennessee. Planning a trip for somewhere else between St. Louis and Memphis? Order Volume 3right here and request the region you need for immediate email delivery!

1997 Flood Watch Updates: The National Weather Service is predicting severe spring flooding throughout the Upper Mississippi River as snowmelts flood tributaries and then the Mississippi itself.
This weekend, reports of rapid snowmelts in Minnesota. The National Weather Service is predicting the most severe Mississippi River flooding on the upper river since April of 1965. The crest is expected in mid-April. Click Here for a chronology of the Floods of 1993.

Thanks to those who reported learning of us on CNN, Starting Point, and in newspapers in Dallas, Pennsylvania, and Minneapolis this month. Visit http://www.amazon.com where DISCOVER! America's Great River Road is a featured travel book and specially priced. Search for Discover! America's Great River Road to see recent reviews.

A new natural history feature, Glaciers Formed the Mississippi River Valley, is now posted. Check right at the very end for ascholarly explanation of how the Mississippi River valley formed during the Jurrassic period. Thanks Ruth and Mark!

Have also added more comments from experienced boaters on the Lower River tothe ADVENTURE section of STUMP THE RIVERLORIAN.
Check out our new page on theWreck of the Steamboat Sultana and the islands known as Paddy's Hen and Chickens Thanks,Joan,for posting your question to STUMP THE RIVERLORIAN! Jack wanted a map of the Mississippi River drainage basin and some facts and figureson Mississippi River tributaries. Good for classrooms!
Business Owners may also contact Pat for complete information on establishingyour own web presence, either by developing your own web site, placing yourbrochure on theMississippi River Home Page or placing your ad on our award-winning content. Email, or callus at 608-457-2734. Visit our Welcome Pages on the web athttp://www.greatriver.com/sponsor.htm and request a FREE copy of our 10 TipsforMarketing Your Web Site.

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New to the BIRDING SITE:
Check out the Travel Insight Features page for several other new wildlife features (Monarchs, mussels, and more!) We've added a Travel Tips section as well, where viewers can send in their favorite spots along the river.
Check out the weekly aerial waterfowl counts for pools 4-14. If you have a count for any of the lower pools, please send them in!
Tundra Swans are back on the river between Alma and Stoddard, Wisconsin, resting as they migrate back to Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast. This is a magnificent sight, with 15,000 - 20,000 white swans clustered primarily on Reick's Lake just north of Alma, at Minnieska, MN, and just north of Stoddard, Wisconsin and at Brownsville, MN.
Other New Stuff! We've added several new links,includingone for the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife Refuge and the US Army's own weatherpage! There is also an excellent new link from the Army Corps called the "NavigationCenter." Everything you want to know about navigating the river, lock & damreports, and more! Check these out in the "Government" section of our Links page.
Welcome to our new sponsors!
The Illinois' Wineries brochurenowincludes travel tips for each community where the nine wineries are located.
If your organization has a brochure that YOU would like posted to the web(river related, of course), please send it to Heritage Press, Rt. 1, Stoddard, WI 54658.
Find our new sponsors listed in the TravelDirectory.While you're there, click on the UPDATED monthly list of Festivals andspecialevents.
Please let our sponsors know that you appreciate their support of the MississippiRiver Home Page. The site absolutely would not be possible without the support of ourbusiness sponsors!
*********************************************************************** Introducing
HERITAGE INTERNET PUBLISHING
Web Site Design and Hosting
If you have been considering starting a web site of your own, we would be happy to apply our web design experience and skills to your project. Find everything frompricelists to an actual application, all on line.
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